


10 rules of success (or how to not be Mike) by Dan Egan.

by theageoldquestion



Category: Veep
Genre: Bisexual Character, F/M, Jonah/Dan if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-05-21 01:58:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6033832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theageoldquestion/pseuds/theageoldquestion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He meets her at some charity benefit he can’t even be bothered to pretend to care about. Something about kid’s bones or something. He’s bored she’s hot. It’s a win, win.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rule no. 1: Network to get work.

He meets her at some charity benefit he can’t even be bothered to pretend to care about. Something about kid’s bones or something. He’s bored she’s hot. It’s a win, win.

The fact that she ends up being the right-hand man for one of the most powerful, up and coming senators is an added bonus. A very welcome bonus. It goes to show that even when he’s not strategizing his dick knows how to play the game.

She’s alright, uptight and kind of boring, but great on top.

He stays with her for far too long, and learns way too much about her. Stupid shit he really shouldn’t waste brain space knowing. She has a weird habit of singing when she’s happy. Loves Italian food, and hates her sister and mice, in that order (though she’d deny the former).

A wide eyed idyllic set on changing the world. Hiding behind a shrill attitude and a masculine dress sense.

Great.

He tries to find an in at her office, desperate for another rung up the ladder. He drops hint after hint and then just outright asks her. Unfortunately she knows exactly what he’s doing and ignores him. He tries to act nonchalant, cool, charismatic... you know, less like a shit.

He puts on the charm. Tells some embarrassing stories that make him seem like a goofball. An all rounded good, smart guy.

It doesn’t work.

He breaks up with her, badly. They scream and shout like his parents at his brother’s wedding. She calls him _“a revolutionary wannabe, too dumb or charmless to ever actually do anything. All piss poor networking. Machiavellian bullshit and a $200 haircut, compensating for middle child syndrome”._

He fights like fire. Outbursts of angry combustion. Blowing his cool on rants about her ass and laughs at her aspirations.

_“Because there is no fucking way in hell that your estrogen filled cunt will ever to the white house, let alone run it”._

She slaps him, and ends up storming out. He ends up masturbating angrily in the shower. Throwing away her spare toothbrush, and hoping to god. She doesn’t tell anyone about the handwritten songs he keeps hidden in the back of his guitar case.


	2. Never burn bridges, rug burn is a bitch.

They end up seeing each other, a lot. First, it’s tense and then it’s sort of fine. A resigned kind of feeling. Like meeting up with those cousins at family gatherings who aren’t cool, but also aren’t fucked in the head. They start bitching about the fuck-heads they have to work with. It’s hard not to. Share a few laughs, it’s almost companionable.

They end up forming a pattern:

He condescendingly, compliments her dress. She asks which one of these girls he’s sacrificing to the Mayans.

He shows off said new girl, deliberately pissing her off. She attempts to warn _“the lamb sacrifice”_ in the bathroom.

He tells her exactly how his career is on the up and up, and she threatens to open a vein.

It’s fun.

It’s refreshing having someone he can be a total asshole, re- himself with.

Occasionally, she in a bout of self-awareness will actually have a date. And spends the whole night ignoring him. It’s so fucking irritating and pathetic, but whatever. His collection of insults will have to wait. Until next time, when she inevitably becomes shelf-life again.

When he starts working for Hallows she’s lets out a shrieking high pitched laugh.

He tells her not to be sexist and shut up.

***

When he starts working for Selina it’s back to the hatred, a resumed competition they started years ago. He can’t blame her. He’s on her turf and she knows he’s going to win.

The fact that he basically announces to every single person on  _their_  team. That they used to bang probably didn’t help.

For enemies, they work surprisingly well together. And yeah, her walking in front of him in fitted Donna Karen is a bonus he oversaw joining team Myer.


	3. Rule no. 3: The Iceman doesn’t melt.

When she’s quoted, to calling him impotent his mother calls him. At work. Amy ends up having to take the phone, and reassure her that he’s fine. It’s the single most embarrassing fucking thing that has ever happened to him.

But, now his mother has stopped harassing him about _“settling down”._

After the whole thing with her dad. He sends her some article, he happens to stumble upon:  _Ten Ways to Rebuild Your Strength after a Stroke_. She doesn’t reply, but there’s a triple shot latte on his desk the next morning.

He learns she’s almost as ruthless as he is and much sharper than he anticipated. He uses every trick in the book to get ahead. She fights back, he wins, usually, unless he doesn’t. Either way the strategizing over dinner, tequila shots and hate-fucking become mandatory.

Until she meets Ed.

Fucking Ed.

Whatever, he’s got a Campaign Manager spot to fill.

He works tirelessly, and so does she. He gets it, she hates him. Everything is right in the universe.

Wasting her time on that albino prey mantis probably didn’t help soften the blow.

***

The pressure is starting to get to him. A hundred whispers of the thousands of things he needs to do today, every day. To stay on top, ahead of the pack, afloat from drowning. The voices needle incessantly at his temples. Travelling down to the tips of his fingers, like little pin pricks that stab harder and begin to wound.

He ignores it. Drums his fingers impatiently. Yells at another intern. And pretends the tight constricting band around his chest is indigestion.

He pops another Advil, with a sip of his red bull.

Today is the day Selina Myer campaigns to be president.

***

Then the breakdown happens.

It takes him about two hours. Jonah’s shit babbling, about the “hot British chick” and, her surprisingly sympathetic attitude. To put two and two together, and realise she’s the one who fucked him over.

He’s been played.

By her.

He sits at home and eats empty carbs. Ignoring the influx of emails. Sent with the embedded tag,  _Amy Brookheimer, Campaign Manager._

Fuck her.

She stops by his apartment. He tells her to fuck off. She asks what he needs. He tells her to go fuck herself in front of ongoing traffic. She doesn’t apologise, just asks again. He pulls half-heartedly at her hair, and tells her to get down on her knees. She looks him straight in the eye, unzips her dress and does.

They spend the rest of the night watching Owen Wilson movies. While she bitches about terrible plot devices and one dimensional female characters. He falls asleep and she leaves without saying goodbye. In the morning, she sends him a text:

_It’s not cancer it’s just your fucking brain. Take some rest, take some Valium, get it sorted and then come back to being the asshole we love to sick the widows on._

He throws out the empty pizza boxes. Finds his audio book of  _Career Fulfilment Through Meditation_. And comes back to work on Monday.


	4. Rule no. 4: Honesty is a crippling disease, akin to baldness: never tell or be tricked into telling the truth, so help you god.

He realises she’s smart. Like really, fucking smart. He admires her and he’ll admit it. She’s a capable manager, more than capable than he ever was. She’s like Superman with tits…well Wonder woman.

She ignores his compliments, as usual. Completing every task with meticulous composure and severe, arrogant instruction.

It’s so fucking hot.

One night, after a very long fucking day, and too many drinks. He admits (for no goddamn reason) to fucking this one guy in college. The words slip of his tongue with an ease, he’ll later attribute to temporary insanity. For a second he feels light. Like a weight has removed of his chest, and he's breathing the first clear lungful of air. Before his alcohol logged brain connects the dots of what he’s just said.

FUCK!

He starts to stammer. Spilling his drink everywhere, he desperately tries to change the subject. Complaining loudly about the shit show that was Mike, while Amy stares at him. Wide eyed and speechless.

In politics, you always pick your best side, and his is straight, white, male. An occasional penchant for easy tops. And an Italian/Jewish heritage can go fuck themselves. There was no way, he was ever going to have his life syphoned. Into that tiny, ass-fucking, rainbow, Harvey Milk, fuck box.

_“You ever think about Jonah?”_

He’s so incredulous he thinks he might pop a brain vessel, and pass out.

_“I have_ ”, she says, calmly. Wiping up his spilt drink with her napkin. _“Couldn’t you just imagine that pathetic weasel begging? All eager and clumsy. He’d be so fucking grateful too”._

His brain literally goes offline for a minute. _“…That’s disgusting”._

All hail the director of communications.

_“I know. I must have an early stage Stockholm syndrome or something”._ She says, before calling for another round. Launching into a rant about Mike’s newest bout of incompetency.  
  
He pretends to listen, and not relief-barf all over the table.

She’s the only person he’s ever admitted that too.


	5. Rule no 5.  Affection leads to a mini-van and a gut.

Somehow through no fault of his own he’s managed to get attached to these assholes.

When Selina becomes president they all end up going out and celebrating. There’s a lot of self-congratulations. Drunken declarations of endearment…and a little cocaine.

_“Another round? Fuck I love you man… like sooooo fucking much, so much! You know what come here. Jonah, come fucking here!”_

Amy leaves pretty early, around 3AM. To go over briefings (she says), and not victory dance in her pyjamas and blow-dry her hair (he says). He has a feint recollection of trying to go with her. She presses her lips against his neck. It's soft and inviting, before she pushes him into a throng of drunken politicos. Where Mike decides to tackle him in an impromptu wrestling match.

He wakes up in his boxer’s underneath Gary, on Mike and Wendy’s living room floor with Jonah somehow asleep on the couch.

He chooses to ignore the several embarrassingly drunk texts, and three voicemails he’s left her.

She doesn’t say anything either, which is more worrying.


	6. Rule: no 6: Charity got Ghandi killed.

This job is fucking terrifying: walking purgatory. Every day a slip up away from getting fired, incarcerated or sent to Guantanamo bay. But it’s the White House, his dream since he was thirteen. So he takes another Advil, moves Amy’s 2nd back up phone, and her parents home phone into his speed dial and keeps going.

This is his calling. Nothing can keep him away from this. Nothing.

When he gets fired she texts him (about 5 hours later),and asks if she can come over. He says no. Amy attempting to comfort someone is a lot like watching a Great Dane. Trying to fit through a doggy door. It’s cute for a moment, but then is just, really fucking annoying. Also, he feels a bit of a drunk cry coming on, so there’s that.

Before she hangs up she tells him there’s re-run of Shanghai Knights playing on T.V.

He watches it.

***

Occasionally, Amy will text him, forgetting he doesn’t work with her.

 

_Amy: Tell me you didn’t get the same stat on Ohio as I did._

_Amy: Fuck, nvm._

_Dan: Miss me that much sweetheart ;)_

_Amy: Shut your hole, dick-face._

_Dan: <3 <3 <3_

_Amy: How’s the resident black hole status going?_

_Dan: Suck my dick. =8 =8 =8_

_It’s going great actually. I’ve got a meeting with Purcell in an hour._

_Amy: Off course your first bet would be to go with actual Satan._

_Why did you text me a bunch of ball sacks?_

_Dan: They're hearts, sarcastic heart…The last ones were dicks._

_Amy: Omg, you're so cool._

_Dan: Shut the duck up!_

 

When he finds out she’s quit, he immediately calls her (mostly for the Intel). There is no fucking way, Amy fucking, Brookheimer, walked away from the White House.

She answers after the first ring and tells him to go away. There’s a slight tremor in her voice. He immediately changes turn signals and says he can get to her favourite bar in 20. She tells him not to bother because she’s going to bed. It’s fucking four in the afternoon, but she insists.

Before she hangs up he hears the clear sound of a weepy sob.

He calls Sydney Purcell immediately and lands her a job.


	7. Rule no. 7: Jump ship before you get shipwrecked.

Someone asks him why he left his own party so quickly. He makes some excuse about coercing a hot girl to let him finger her in the parking lot, then taking her home.

Something about saying he followed out Amy to watch her do angry, drunk karaoke sounds kind of gross.

_“You are so vaaaaain. You probably think this song is about you, SO FUCKING VAIN!”_

He may have sung a song or two.

When she tells him why she got fired he rolls his eyes. He tells her to get over her dreams of blowing Susan B Anthony and focus on shit that’s important, like a fucking Lexus. And for once she, listens to him.

Then she steals half of his clients.

She does this by stealing half of his clients. He hates it, but he’ll take Wonder woman over fucking Bjork any day. He can take a small hit for the team.

They work like a well lubed machine. Bouncing off each other ideas, finishing each other’s sentences. Kill every job and make more money than either know what to do with. It’s almost distressing how well they work together.

Especially when you consider Amy is completely and totally half-assing it.

***

“We gooot it, we goooot it, paprika money we got you, woah uh oooh!”ah uh oooh!”ooh!”.

They are so many things he will never understand about Amy Brookheimer. 

He doesn’t understand how she manages to pick things up so quickly. Constantly a step ahead of him in a career he's worked at for half a decade longer.

He doesn’t understand why she still keep tabs on everyone at Meyer. Why Mike still calls her for advice, or why every fortnight she gets coffee with Sue. 

He doesn’t get how she got so good. Why everything she does is so fucking good. It doesn’t make any sense because she’s such a frumpy dork who hates socialising, likes reading for fun and is scared of tiny ass spiders, and verbally threatens pigeons if they look like they’re going to shit on her shoes, but there she is. Everyday a fucking, superstar. Who comes in and annoys you within the first two minutes of being there. Launching into another rant about the patriarchy, while you’re not through your first cup of coffee. And you ignore her because you were both up so late last night and your fucking exhausted, but she keeps yammering on, and on. Putting paper in the printer like a fucking intern. Then Purcell comes in demanding a copy of the re-write of a proposal you had no idea you were making today. And your breath becomes short, while you head feels like it’s going to split open bleed all over the floor. 

And she just…hands you a copy of that proposal, which is also now somehow bound. 

He would never admit it, but he becomes a little obsessed with her family. How coupon-save middle American made a woman who didn’t need to go to an Ivy prep school. He doesn’t know how she survived. He pictures pressed J crew shirts, frizzy hair, giant glasses and a virginity until 21. Sitting on her parent’s couch reading The Dialectic of Sex, while her family watch Married with Children.  
He tries to ask about her home life, and she shoots him a look, like he’s asked her the diameter of Mike’s left testicle… To the nearest millimetre. 

He covers his embarrassment by saying he’s trying to figure out if her crazy is nature or nurture.

_“Worried I’ll give you another panic attack Egan?”_

_“Shut up, Brookheimer”_

***

The outfit she wears at the hearing (under his helpful suggestion). Makes him double over and laugh for a minute straight.

She looks like a kindergarten teacher for the Amish.

That night he has the greatest sex dream. She’s teaching Poly-Sci, he’s playing guitar, there’s a detention: Cliché, but still amazing.

There’s easier things than facing imprisonment with a semi though.

When it’s all over Amy practically hurls him through his apartment door to celebrate. Not-going-to-jail-sex is better than he imagined. And he had high fucking expectations. 

The scratch marks last for days.

The next few weeks are a blur of televised successes, money, and competitive level fucking.

He thinks he’s finally found his calling.


	8. Rule no. 8: Pick yourself up. You pathetic excuse for a human being.

Amy leaving him for Selina is a shock. It shouldn’t be, but it is. It hurts knowing that after everything they’ve been through; and, it obviously being the best career choice. She still chooses to leave him.

It’s humiliating. Sitting there under the hot lights, rejected for the whole country to see.

He pushes it down. Smiles at the camera. Gets in a few digs where he can, and rings every member of Selina’s team during the commercial break.  

Mike answers, and for a split second he feels helpful. Like he’s a double agent, secretly gunning for the Myer Campaign. The feeling doesn’t last long, and he doesn’t even get a mention by the president who walks off stage. They go off air and the entire studio is up in flames. People are screaming and running around trying to find something about this amendment; that, no one seems to know anything about.

He sneaks out. Ignores the buzz of Amy in his pant pocket and starts his car.  He feels numb, like he’s on autopilot.

When he gets to the parking lot of his apartment he finally listens to her voicemail.

 _“Hey, Dan, when you get this, can you put in a good word for me with Greg? I think that I need to keep my TV work going”_  

A flash of everything terrible that’s happened over the past year goes through his mind.  He leans his head against the cold plastic of his steering wheel and closes his eyes. 

Eventually, he drags his sorry ass inside and onto his couch.

The same one he’s had since college, lights up a joint and plays a few tunes on his guitar.

He doesn’t return her call. That would be pathetic.  

***

After careful deliberation, he figures out his problem. Somehow against all logic and sense, he has formed some sort of weird attachment to Amy.

He like…loves her.

I know. You can only go for so long, before the sting of venom that is human connection gets you.

Guess that child psychiatrist was wrong.

This is okay though, because like that stutter in middle school. All things can be forced out with dedication and resilience.

Also, being in love isn’t as bad as he once thought. It’s fucking terrible, but they are some upsides. Having your emotions betray you in the worst possible way. Feels like a get-out-of-jail free card for everything else:

Sure, that meeting with Purcell today was humiliating and embarrassing; but, It wasn’t your fault. It was Amy’s. Her...womanly pheromones got stuck on your brain, or something.

You want me to go running back to the women who fired me because you know I literally have no other job options? Sure. Only for you though.

Oh, that comment was rude and unnecessary? Well I’m in fucking love with you, so give me a goddamn break!

They’ve worked together for a while now, but it starts to feel different. He flirts as always, but she doesn’t pinch her face in disgust like she normally does.

There’s no biting words between synchronised movements and thought processes. She doesn’t push him against hardwood doors at the end of the month, like he owes her something.

Instead she seems flustered, and oddly pleased, flattered. There’s a shy smile beneath the roll of her eyes.

It feels weird, tainted, uncomfortable. Like that sickly feeling you get when you become too hot for too long.

He plays along. Allows the trickle of pseudo romance to peek through meaningless gestures. Just like he did all those years ago.

Maybe, it’ll be different now? 

Maybe, he can do this properly without fucking it up.

Maybe it'll be like every rom-com ever and he'll grow from love, and his happiness will somehow lead to a promotion. 

Maybe, he won’t lose his best friend. 

And like an angel providing salvation, Sophie appears next to him and offers him CBS.

He’s in love, but he’s not a fucking idiot.

**Author's Note:**

> Soz for taking so long. I kept waiting for this season to get better ... it didn't.


End file.
